Bryce gave up the penthouse and returned the fleet car and folded himself into a far smaller life than the one he’d been so sure he was walking into that morning at the lawyer’s.

But his downfall was never my victory.

I want that understood.

I took no joy in the penthouse or the car or the vanished heir.

My actual victory came on a much quieter afternoon.

Lucia came running in from the garden with dirt on both knees.

“Mom!

Sophia says when she grows up she wants to run a company, like you!”